Quoting: SuppenSounds like a well deserved lawsuit

Absolutely.
That's an abuse of market power if I ever saw one.

And nobody profits - except Valve.
Customers get screwed, devs get screwed.

The equivalent would be Amazon not allowing sellers lower prices outside of Amazon's marketplace.

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Liam goes brrr

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Quoting: Basiani

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: slaapliedjeSure, maybe the gameplay didn't change, but what if they dropped Linux support because they couldn't figure out how to install a rootkit, but they did on the Windows version?

An online game needs good anti-cheat software, that's an unfortunate truth.
If rootkits are truly necessary or not is certainly up for debate (I'd say no), but it doesn't really matter for this point.
If an online game does not have good anti-cheat, then the quality of the game would definitely suffer.

I just don't see what the connection between dropping a platform and a game's quality has to do with this?

Two possilbe reasons:
1) Their rootkits doesn't work same way in Linux as on Windows, so it can't do anything against Linux cheaters.
2) Their rootkits can't be hidden from advanced Linux researchers and of caurse they not want that.

That's all correct, and it might be possible explanations of why a platform is dropped - security concerns.
But still nothing of that has anything to do with the quality of the game. I'm really not getting the connection here.

Quoting: areamanplaysgameI can link to Wikipedia, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent#Government_partnerships [External Link]

1.) Wikipedia as the arbiter of truth - come on :grin: It's good for anything historical or scientific, including IT, but as soon as politics are involved, I wouldn't trust Wikipedia more than the next best tabloid journalist...
2.) So, what? You think only the Chinese government has games made on behalf of them? Seriously?
3.) The post you quoted didn't quote Wikipedia to begin with ??

Quoting: areamanplaysgameYou should assume that big multinational corporations based in China are more or less directly controlled by the CCP

Except for the tiny part where this is simply untrue and typical western China bashing.
Even Chinese SOEs have a lot of leeway in how they run their businesses - privately owned companies even more so. And Tencent is not an SOE.
Are large companies monitored by the CCP? Of course - but as long as they don't take action against the government or get too uppity, they can do whatever they want.

Quoting: areamanplaysgameThey don't need your help.

Indeed they don't. And I don't think anyone here is defeding Tencents actions in anything.
What does need some help in the face of your blatant conspiracy of "they control everything!" is the truth, though.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeSure, maybe the gameplay didn't change, but what if they dropped Linux support because they couldn't figure out how to install a rootkit, but they did on the Windows version?

An online game needs good anti-cheat software, that's an unfortunate truth.
If rootkits are truly necessary or not is certainly up for debate (I'd say no), but it doesn't really matter for this point.
If an online game does not have good anti-cheat, then the quality of the game would definitely suffer.

I just don't see what the connection between dropping a platform and a game's quality has to do with this?

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Quoting: rea987You do realize this is a site dedicated to Gaming on Linux? Of course a game losing support for a Linux make itself worse for Linux players.

No, it doesn't.
The game itself isn't better or worse. It's mechanics didn't change, nothing about it that has any influence on the quality of game changed, nobody who still plays the game lost any game quality over that change.

You can't play it. That makes your situation worse, so Epic made your situation worse, indeed, but not the game itself.
One shouldn't confuse one's own situation in relation to the game with the quality of a game itself.

Quoting: Segata SanshiroMore like authoritarian capitalism or "capitalism with Chinese characteristics." I honestly hope no one tries to emulate that, it sounds like an incredibly unpleasant world to live in.

Don't know about that. In contrast to the slowly collapsing economies we have in the west, their shit works and seems vastly more stable. And that is IMO mostly due to the advantages of authoritarian systems.
Not saying all should copy it, but it should be looked at thoroughly and without blinding idealism to see what improvements, if any, can be taken from it and applied to ours.

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Quoting: Arten

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: ArtenSo, you propouse use regulation (forcing valve enable regional pricing) for deal with consequences of another regulation?

You are shifting the blame here.
The consequences of not allowing region blocking should not be that there is only one EU region. Imagine if that was the case for other goods - EU would have imploded the moment that happened.
That this was the result is entirely Valve's fault - they could have, and easily so, only removed the region locking without also removing different EU regions (remember, they had those, even if only three).
They did not do that out of good old corporate greed - capitalistic entities will always strive to maximize profit, no matter the negative consequences. Which a state (or in this case, the EU) exists to regulate in order to benefit its citizens. It's called social capitalism and is working fairly well in most European countries.
It requires regulations, believe it or not.

Now, what can the EU do here?
Abolish its own principles because one fringe entity (in the grand scheme of things, when talking about the entire EU, Valve doesn't amount to anything) chose to be greedy about implementing laws?
I'd hope not - if they did that, it would show that just about anyone could strongarm the EU into backpedaling.
Force Valve to not f*ck over its customers? That would be optimal but as I said, I have no clue if there is legal ground to enforce regional pricing.
Or just do nothing and accept being blamed for another's fault? Unfortunately the most likely scenario here, there are bigger tasks to tackle right now for the EU than Valve.

Quoting: ArtenAnother regulation only do situaction worst in another place!

Not the one that I proposed, at least not for customers.
As I wrote before, regional pricing has not lead to price increases so far - just look at Russian games that aren't region locked, there is no price increase on the scale some seem to be afraid of.
Assuming that this would somehow be different for the EU is just fear mongering without a base in reality.

It would lead to Valve and publishers earning less money per purchase in lower income regions - while also leading to a lot more purchases in these regions. I'm not even sure it would lead to a net loss. I could very well imagine lots of people from lower income regions purchasing a lot more after such a change.

Besides, seriously, what is the worst that could happen?
We already ARE in the worst case for most Steam customers in the EU! Everyone's paying the highest price. Having regional prices again would mean an improvement for pretty much everyone.
Even in the (highly unlikely) case that those regional prices would be rising - they'd still be lower for most than they are now.

I'm not shifting blame. I identified true criminal in this case and it is EU. Whole EU is just regulatory hell which make hell from living in here. Idea of duty free trade is good, but EU evolved into mutch closer to totalitarian organisation. Ok, not china level yet, but wait couple years.
EU is evil organisation to begin with.
Which negative consequences have maximizing profit in this case? That rich germans with houshold income mote then 2* greater then for example czech houshold income can't buy games on third party regional sites and use it? Without this barier, germans can maximize their profit at the expense of citizens of poorer nations. So local third party stores need choose higher prices.

In this case, Valve is purely victim of EU oppression and regulatory hell.
So, some games are using regional lock in russia. Is logical to assume one who change price are the one which move price.

I was going to actually reply in detail and dismantle every single non-argument in that load of poorly veiled anti-EU propaganda.
But I think that would be waste of time and instead I'm going to abbreviate it all with:

Careful, your mouth is foaming.

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Quoting: rea987Rocket League lost Linux support. Period.

The question was about games that got worse because of Tencent.
Do you really believe Epic would have done anything different if they had acquired Psyonix without Tencent?

Anyway, I think this was more about games that became worse on a design level, with a sudden influx of MTX, etc.
A game losing support for a platform doesn't make the game itself any worse. Just like having Linux support on its own doesn't make any game any better.

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I was going to say " 'China Bad!' screechers in 3... 2... 1..." but it appears I am too late.
Oh, well.

Quoting: NezchanWell, not getting into the Chinese government issue, but Tencent is very much the masters of predatory monetization.

I'm not worried about the Chinese government at all, but that part is indeed something I'd see as very worrying - and that would be the same if EA had acquired them.
We'll see just how quickly Klei turns from industry darling to something else entirely now.
Just shows that anyone can be bought for the right price.

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Quoting: x_wingBased on what it's written here Steam may not be able to restrict the access to the Russian store nor reject a credit card that is located in the EU.

But what's written there applies only to the EU, except if I missed or misinterpreted something.
I don't think anything in there applies to outside of the EU (like Russia).

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: TheSHEEEPjust look at Russian games that aren't region locked, there is no price increase on the scale some seem to be afraid of.

Real question: are those Russian keys region locked ? Can i buy a game at a lower price in a Russian store and activate it in the EU here ?

Depends on the game. I'm not certain how many are region locked. Probably most - except for indies.
But definitely not all - and those that aren't did not lead to their prices exploding for Russians.
Here's a guide on how to check if a game is region locked (it is cumbersome):
https://www.hlplanet.com/how-to-check-game-region-lock/ [External Link]

Bottom line is that it is up to publishers if they want to region lock or not.
Undoubtedly, most do want that as they expect increased profit from that.
But especially indie games are often not region locked (and you won't find region specific "CD Key" entries for them on steamdb).

That said, it isn't too easy to pull off.
You require a VPN to begin with - which has to function well enough for Steam not to detect that you are using it and just show you your "real" prices anyway.
I suspect the entire purchase pipeline in Steam is full with checks to detect VPNs - and afaik using a VPN to purchase is against Steam's TOS, so very much use at your own risk.
In addition to that, I'm fairly sure you also need a "local" payment method, e.g. local Russian credit card or something like that. If you wanna pay via PayPal and your PayPal still says you are not in Russia, well... I wouldn't do it.

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